Sarah Jakes Roberts: Finding Power in Your Purpose | Praise on TBN

Sarah Jakes Roberts shares an inspiring devotional on TBN’s Praise about trusting in God for our purpose, and claiming the God-given power that the enemy tries to take from us in difficult times!

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It is time for you to not just look for your purpose, but to look for the area where your power has been under attack and to serve whatever that is in eviction notice, to let that thing know that power moves.
And you’re getting ready to move with power.
I’ll never forget the moment when it became clear that I had stumbled into purpose.
I was so excited that it became clear to me the reason why god had allowed me to go through some of the things that I’d went through.
I was sharing my story. It was helping other women. It was uplifting them and connecting them with Jesus.
You know, a little further into my purpose, though.
I started recognizing that the thing that I thought would make me feel powerful was actually kind of draining me.
I was stressed. I was worried. I found myself feeling like I was performing.
One of the illusions of having purpose is that it will allow us to feel powerful.
I have discovered that having a purpose really makes us feel dependent more than it does make us feel powerful.
Depending on god allows for our gifts, our talents our stories to become purposeful and ultimately powerful.
Now because of our own life and our own journey, but because of what happens when we partner with God, the reason why I feel it’s important that you understand this is because so many people are constantly asked What’s my purpose?
What’s my purpose? I wanna ask you instead something that may totally blow you, and that is Where did you lose power?
Because if you can discover where you lost power, if you can discover where you began to get confused about your identity and who you are, then we can find the area where god wants to partner with you so that you can experience his purpose for your life and his power flowing through you.
I bet you If we ask Eve this question, she would take us back to the garden.
And she would say the moment that I lost power is when I started having a conversation with the Serpent.
I am not just guessing though because in Genesis 3 verse 13, it quite literally says when god has a confrontation about what happened in the garden How could you eat from this forbidden tree?
It says and the lord god said to the woman, what is this you have done?
The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate.
When we look earlier in Genesis 3, we see that they were just having a conversation It’s not like the serpent came up to her and was obvious with his intentions.
It was just a conversation. And in that conversation, She lost vision on who god is.
She lost vision on who she is. She lost her power in that moment.
It seems so inconsequential having this station, but that conversation stripped her of power.
This is important for you to understand because there are so many things in our life that feels casual, random, a part of what it means to be human, and we don’t recognize that those things are actually stripping us of our power.
Maybe it wasn’t just shame. Maybe it’s not just fear that everyone else has.
Maybe it’s not just the way that you do things in your family.
Maybe what you have called common, what you have considered casual, is actually stripping you of power.
And you need god’s power to be able to flow through you.
But if god’s power can’t flow through you because something has clamped to your flow, then you will feel much like e felt after she ate from the tree powerless.
We were talking and we were having a conversation about the difference between being powerless and powerful.
Sometimes we don’t necessarily wanna feel powerful because we’re afraid of confidence and the arrogance connected to that, but we also recognize that feeling powerless creates a discomfort inside of us.
You wanna know why? Because you were not created to be powerless.
When god created man and woman, he gave them a huge assignment.
To be fruitful and to multiply to subdue and to have dominion. He told them to feel the earth.
These are powerful statements meant for powerful people. This was god’s original intention for your existence.
And if those big words scare you.
If those big words to make you question your worth, your value, your offering, then somewhere along the way, power has been stripped from you.
I’m so grateful, though, that power loss, power failure is not the end of our story.
Because through Jesus, we have access to reclaim the power that god originally intended for us to have in Genesis.
I was reading in scripture in Luke 10, and there was this verse that has just resonated in my head.
It’s rolled over and over again. It’s in loop 10 verse 17 through 19.
And in this passage of scripture, Jesus, we hear Jesus talk a lot about the 12 disciples.
We very rarely hear him talk about the 70 to 72 disciples that he dispatched with a similar assignment.
You’d have to read all of Luke Ten to get the full picture But when he gives them authority, he tells them to heal the sick.
He tells them to establish the kingdom of heaven.
He tells them to do so many things He didn’t tell them to go at messing with demons and devils, but they must have got courageous and bold because while they were out there, were recognizing the effectiveness of what Jesus had given them.
When Jesus gave them power, they put that power to work.
That is making me feel some kind of way even right now. So often we go to church.
We read worship songs. We may be seeing inspirational posts.
And in that moment, it makes us feel powerful, but we just store that power for a rainy day, but these disciples teach us that when Jesus gives you power, you have to put that power to work.
If there is something that comes up in your mind after after you have heard a sermon or you’ve read a scripture that really empowered you.
You have to enact that in your life immediately because power multiplies only when it’s put to use.
So they’re out preparing the way for Jesus.
They’ve put this power to use, and the moment they begin putting the power to use.
They come back and they say, hey, Jesus.
I did all of the things that you told us to do, and I was caught off guard.
I was surprised but even the demons and the devils were subject to us in your name.
You’ve gotta read loop 10 to get the full synopsis of what happened.
But what I wanna hone in on the most is Jesus responds to them.
It’s in Luke 10 verse 17 through 19.
It says Then the 70 returned with joy saying, lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name, and he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Behold. I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Jesus tells them, first of all, what you’re calling a big deal that the demons are subject to you in my name is not a big deal at all.
I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning.
That is not a big deal, but what is a big deal.
He later tells them is that your name is written in heaven.
The reason why this scripture stands out in my mind and gets me really so fired up is that, 1, we hear Jesus acknowledge when he says, I have given you authority over all of the power of the enemy.
We hear Jesus acknowledge that the enemy has power.
Now that may sound immature or fundamental to some of you who have just been so walking in the faith for so long that you know that the devil has had power, but we’ve got power over the enemy.
But for those of us who have had a more up and down complicated journey who have become complicit and even our own demise to recognize that maybe what you’re calling casual fear, maybe what you’re calling just shame that you’ve become comfortable with for so long, is actually the power of the enemy keeping you from living out that life that god intended in Genesis 1.
But remember, I told you, thanks to Jesus, you don’t have to settle for that power failure.
Jesus says I gave you power over that. And nothing by any means shall harm you.
That means it may rear its head. It may seem like it’s hurt you.
It may seem like it’s broken you.
And in those moments, You may have to lick your wounds, but when it’s all said and done, we serve a god who will restore what the locusts have eaten We serve a god who will show you that what the enemy meant for evil, he meant it for good.
It may look like the weapon is prospering right now, but when god gets finished writing your story, you will see that the weapon did not prosper.
It was only just formed, but this takes trust.
It takes you coming to a place where you believe that being powerless is not your inheritance.
It comes down to you coming to a point in your life where you have decided to become uncomfortable with the version of yourself that shrinks when you wanna stay in tall that stay silent when you wanna speak up.
I’m gonna share this one last thing with you before closing.
It’s something that I jot it down just before I knew we’d be spending time together.
What I love so much about this conversation that Jesus has with the disciples is that he informs them about what he gave them when he gave them authority.
He also helps them to understand that what they used to be afraid of If you read anything in the new testament, you understand that those who were considered demon possessed or who had been affected by the enemy were, uh, people were afraid them.
They stayed away from them because they didn’t have any power over them.
But because they had Jesus power, how power has now moved in the direct of them having authority over the thing that once had authority over them.
Thinking about the woman caught in the act of adultery.
And where Shane could have been the final answer for her.
When after Jesus says he without sand cast the first stone, she could have said, okay.
I got out of that mess, but I’m still shame that I got in the mess anyway.
Jesus takes the extra time to say, woman look around who condemns you.
She looks around and she says, no one. And he says, neither do I. Now go and sin no more.
Once again, we see power moving where there was an opportunity for shame to have control Jesus says, I want you to be free from that, and I want you to go.
Don’t get stuck. Don’t stay stagnant to start moving in the direction of where my power has declared for you to be free.
It is time for you to not just look for your purpose, but to look for the area where your power has been under attack and to serve whatever that is in eviction notice to let that thing know that power moves, and you’re getting ready to move with power.
Holy Spirit, I thank you that you meet us in the area where we need you the most, that you recognize that life for us has not always been easy.
That there have been many moments where we questioned our worth, our value, and our ability to stand up to the moments that seem bigger than us.
And yet this message has found the other person at a time in their life where they are beginning to wonder whether or not your power can move them.
Let this be a sign that it is time for them to move with power. God.
I pray that you would give them strength wisdom insight, courage to just take a baby step.
That baby step will feel like a leap But once they take that baby step, they will see that they are assigned to move mountains in your name.
May your grace, your love, your power, catch them by surprise.
Never let them go and move them for generations into the direction of righteousness in Jesus name. Amen.